Landscape and reminiscence: towards an emotional geography of the University of New England

Abstract

"...no landscape - aesthetic, poetic, moral, material or surreal - has an objective appearance or significance independent of the beholder." It's 1984. Yes, literally. No Orwellian future time. Just that calendar year after 1983. It is winter and early morning. I lie asleep in a corner room of the three storey, grey concrete box that constitutes 'A' Block at St Albert's College. I am a 'fresher' on 'Bottom A'. Above me in, 'Middle A', some of my female friends in third year have already woken up. In fact, they are running about the corridor and knocking on everyone's door. "It's snowing! It's snowing!", they call. I quickly get up and, like everyone else, run first to my window and then to the courtyard outside to see snow falling. Flakes of ice swirl erratically between the gnarled and twisted branches of the wisteria that frames the courtyard. They fall to the ground and lie amongst the barren winter gardens. I add to the still growing group of bedraggled students gathered outside. We are witness to what will later be reported in the news as the biggest snowfall in Armidale for some 56 years.